POPULATION SOCIETIES & After forty years of contraceptive freedom , why so many unplanned pregnancies in France ?

Over the last forty years, while birth control has madesubstantial progress, it has generated growing demandfor planned parenthood. Prospective parents now expectnot only to choose the number of children and the momentof entry into parenthood, but also the interval betweenbirths and even the time of year when the births occur. Yetcontrol over fertility is by no means perfect. The share ofunintended pregnancies remains very high in France,while many couples still find it difficult or impossible tohave a child.Figure 3 – Seasonality of births among primary schoolteachers and among women in general, France, 2006 Note: Data adjusted to take account of the number of days and thenumber of Saturdays and Sundays in the month.Source: INSEE (register of births)80859095100105110115120 Janv. Fév. Mars Avr. Mai Juin Juil. Août Sept. Oct. Nov. Déc.EnsembleInstitutrices Répartition égale sur l'annéeINED24607 (A. Régnier-Loilier and H. Leridon, Population & Societies, no.439, INED, November 2007)Four decades of legalized contraception in France: an unfinished revolution?4 Four decades of legalized contraception in France: an unfinished revolution? Population & Societies, 439, November 2007INEDsince the end of the fourteenth century. The 1920 lawincluded articles making it an offence to encourageabortion or to collude in such an act. The 1923 law en-deavoured to strengthen repression by transferringsuch cases to a criminal court and away from civilianjuries who might be more lenient and reduce thenumber of acquittals. The 1939 Code de la Famille (Fam-ily Code) made the sanctions still heavier, including forattempted abortion. Lastly the Vichy régime took aneven tougher stand in 1942 by transferring trials ofabortionists to the State Tribunals, which resulted intwo people being executed.N. and T. did not need to know the legal details;they were well aware that they had to be careful, ifonly because they knew other lovers who had beenforced to deal with unfortunate occurrences of this na-ture. Anyone who refused to accept their fate and sim-ply “dealt with” the problem, soon learnt how quicklypeople in a village or neighbourhood detected any-thing out of the ordinary, such as a swelling belly,sheets too long unstained, or stained in a suspect man-ner. They would not only have to endure social con-demnation but in some cases would be tried andseverely sentenced.Some six months prior to this incident, N. had lefthome for several weeks. According to her version of thefacts, she had gone on holiday to her aunt’s, but herabsence aroused suspicion and she was denouncedanonymously. The couple was summoned by the gen-darmes and interrogated. Each was questioned in de-tail about every aspect of their love-making as well asanything they had done subsequently. N. was obligedto undergo a gynaecological examination to detect anysigns of having undergone an abortion. Had she visiteda backstreet abortionist during her absence, and beenhospitalized for complications as a result, as so oftenhappened (2)? The police report was less explicit thansome and is not clear on the matter. The gendarmesdid, however, succeed in obtaining a confession: N. hadbeen distressed for a while because she thought shewas missing a period. But she took some over-the-counter “pills”, known for their emmenagogic virtuesand her menstrual cycle returned to normal.The so-called Neuwirth Act (No. 67-1176) of 28 Decem-ber 1967 legalized contraception in France. It marked achange in the history of population policies in Franceand indicated a new institutional attitude to sexual andreproductive behaviour, even though, like many laws,it merely sanctioned a change that it had little part increating. The fortieth anniversary of this event pro-vides an opportunity to recall the conditions underwhich a previous generation of men and women ledtheir sexual lives. The misfortunes ofa young couple in the past Police files and legal archives are among the few meansavailable to historians for understanding the privatepractices of individuals in the past. The following is anexample of an ordinary couple in early 1943. N. and T.,who had been courting for two years, took a lovers’stroll along the banks of a river that ran through theirrespective home towns. N. was preparing to lose hervirginity. Although the young pair probably had onlyimmediate expectations, hopes or fears, they werenevertheless gambling on their future — and N. moreso than T. — for they were exposing themselves to aconsiderable number of risks (1). N. was sixteen years-old. She was starting out as a hairdresser and still livedwith her widowed father who watched over her closely.T. was two years older and worked in a factory. Becauseof their age, their situation and the period they lived in,it was vital for them to avoid any “accident”, since birthoutside wedlock was condemned and unmarriedmothers reviled. By the standards of their time, theiryouthful, extra-marital tryst without reproductive in-tent, should not have occurred. A law passed just a gen-eration earlier on 31 July 1920, prohibited thedissemination of any kind of sexual information, there-by keeping a large mass of individuals in ignoranceabout their bodies, and banned advertising for contra-ceptives (female devices, such as pessaries, predeces-sors of the diaphragm [2], were not even authorized forsale). This considerably reduced the means available tocouples for preventing an unwanted pregnancy. Andthere was no legal way to stop a pregnancy since abor-tion was outlawed under the French Penal codes (boththe 1791 and 1810 versions) and severely condemnedFrom clandestine contraception to the 1967 Neuwirth Act.Why did France drag its feet?